At the SMPS conference — pondering the questions about achievement, success and personality

I travelled to Philadelphia today for the annual Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Build Business conference. The conferences follow traditions. This year, I found myself reverting to my personality ‘norm’ — with an impressively ineffective social functioning character. In other words, put me in a room with a few hundred (or, worse, thousand) people, and even though I might actually know some of them, I feel as if I know none — and so spend the time in total mental isolation.

Needless to say, this is an awkward form of behaviour. I sometimes get around it partially by reverting to my journalist role. I listen to the speakers, maybe ask them a few questions, usually sit in the front row, and take some photos. The social stuff, nah.

(My status as a conference guest afforded me an invitation to the VIP reception. I visited it for a few minutes, having a bite of hors d’oeuvres and drinking one vodka and orange, before decamping to my “own” world.)

My accommodations aren’t conventional, also. The informal AirBNB space is in a third floor walk-up in South Philadelphia. There’s air conditioning, but the homeowner asked me to keep it off when I’m not in the place — so it was stifling when I returned here this evening. I also discovered Philadelphia has something I haven’t seen in other cities; a cross between a subway and trolley car system. The small trains run above ground on their routes, then disappear into the bowels of the earth for the final few miles to the central terminal.

All of these observations have little to do with construction marketing, but they set the stage for the observations about today’s events.

In the first, I attended a panel discussion based on this question: “Is marketing leadership Moving our Profession Forward in the AEC Industry.” This was a program of the SMPS Fellows — an honour granted to long-standing members who have made signfiicant contributions to the association and the industry. Kind of a grey eminences club.

The speakers, and the questioners, generally gave the answers I expected: Yes, marketing leadership is helpful and is adding respect, but firms and practices have their own cultures, traditions and models, and there isn’t a magic bullet to bring AEC marketing to a higher level.

Then, after a break, introductory speaker Ben Casnocha outlined some of his thoughts about entrepreneurship and risk taking. He suggested entrepeneurs are “intelligent risk takers” and “intelligent network builders” — in other words, they are able to build a team of employees and supporters around them who truly carry their weight. (I think I’m not doing so well on the “intelligent network” building at this conference, given my awkward social isolation.)

Some of the audience for Ben Casnocha’s presentation

One of Casnocha’s claims to fame is his close relationship with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. From that experience, he has outlined some rather powerful basic success principles.

Tomorrow, I’ll do my “work for the conference, judging the Marketing Communications Awards to determine the best of the best. It takes several hours and requires me to connect with others in the room. (I will.) But the evening gala will be something different. Tables full of people from different chapters; friends, connections, socially belonging. Hopefully I will sit with some other people and may even get to know them a bit.

If you want you can communicate with Mark Buckshon by email at buckshon@constructionmarketingideas.com or leave a comment.